BBC ON THIS DAY | 7 | 1968: Jim Clark killed in car smash About This Site | Text Only 1968: Jim Clark killed in car smash Motor racing world champion Jim Clark has been killed in a car crash during a Formula Two race at Hockenheim. Clark, 32, was at the wheel of his Lotus-Cosworth which left the track at 170mph (274km/h), somersaulted through the air and collided with a tree on a remote part of the German track. The twice Formula One champion, who sustained a broken neck and a fractured skull, was dead before he reached hospital. The cause of the accident is not yet known although experts have suggested it could have been a fault in the steering mechanism or rear-axle suspension. Although it had been raining prior to the race, this is not thought to have caused Clark's car to skid. The car seemed to be in a thousand pieces Eye-witness The 80,000 spectators, who were informed of the accident via loudspeaker some two hours later, were stunned by the news. They spontaneously rose to their feet in silent tribute.

The only witness to the accident was a track marshal who said: "I was horror-struck. Everything happened so fast. The car skidded off to the left and seemed to dive through the fence only 10 yards (9.14m) from me. "It went skidding and somersaulting across the grass and hit a tree with a tremendous thump. "The car seemed to be in a thousand pieces." 'Hell of a gap' The 32-year-old farmer from Scotland, who was not married, had been involved in several spectacular accidents during his 15-year career but had never suffered serious injury. Tributes poured in from around the world as the news of Jim Clark's death was spread. Fellow racing driver Graham Hill, who was in the same race, said Jim Clark's death "leaves a hell of a gap in the racing scene". He added: "For me as well as for thousands of others, it means the loss of a friend." Jackie Stewart, also a racing driver, said: "Jimmy's death is probably the most tragic thing in my experience of motor-racing - probably in the history of motor-racing.

"Jimmy was not only a famous driver, he was an international personality, loved by all his fiercest rivals." Clark's body is due to be flown back to Scotland later today. His funeral is expected to take place Wednesday in Chirnside, near his home. Jim Clark - The Jim Clark Trust - Promoting the legacy of Jim Clark Jim Clark Biography by Andrew Tulloch – Assistant Curator Jim Clark Memorial Room Jim Clark was born on the 4th March 1936 in Kilmany in Fife where his father, also James Clark, had a farm. Jim was the only boy in the family, and the youngest with four elder sisters. In 1942 the Clarks moved to the farm at Edington Mains just outside Chirnside in Berwickshire. Although technically a Fifer Jim became very much a Borderer, spending his formative years in the area. He was educated initially at Chirnside before going to Clifton Hall prep school in Edinburgh and then finally at Loretto School just outside the city. Jim left school in 1952 to work on the family farm. At this time he had no intention of being a racing driver.

As a farmer’s son he had been driving cars and tractors since he was a child. He was already interested in racing and was a regular reader of Autosport but the thought of being a racing driver was not yet there. However that was to change slowly. In 1953 he obtained a full driving license, joined the Ednam Young Farmers Club and met Ian Scott-Watson in the process. Although he did not yet know it, he was about to be steered towards his future career. The Early Years Initially his motor sport consisted of club events; local rallies, driving tests and similar events, nothing that could be described as a race. His first actual race was in June 1956 when Ian Scott-Watson entered his DKW Sonderklasse in a race meeting in Crimond near Fraserburgh. He also secretly entered Jim in the sports car race. Jim had always been reluctant to race near home as his parents felt motor racing was frivolous, expensive and dangerous. Crimond was far enough away from home that it seemed they wouldn’t find out.

As a novice, and in a car that wasn’t really competitive in such a race, it was no surprise that Jim came last in the race, but his times were so good that Ian was penalised in the handicap race. The organisers deemed that Ian had been “sandbagging” in practice to improve his chances of victory. Jim did not race again until September of 1957. This time it was at Charterhall in Berwickshire and Jim competed in three races, winning the final one, the BMRC Trophy. He defeated Jock McBain, a local garage owner, but one who was also a very experienced racing driver. As the experienced driver, racing in the most powerful car Jock was the clear favourite and it was a huge feat for Jim to win race. The Border Reivers Another result of this victory was the reformation of the Border Reivers racing team. Jock put up the finance and the resources of his garage behind the team and Ian was to be the secretary. Jim was the main driver, other drivers being recruited locally, most of which were farmers. None of them were paid to race although there was some prize money to be won.

Over the next two years Jim raced for the Reivers in Britain and increasingly in continental Europe. Highlights of this period included his win at Full Sutton in April 1958 when he became the first driver to average 100mph in a British sports car race. The following month saw his first continental race at Spa where Archie Scott Brown was killed. At the end of the year on Boxing Day he raced against Colin Chapman. Both were driving Elites and Jim was very unlucky to finish second. The following summer the Border Reivers entered an Elite in the Le Mans 24 Hours race. Jim was partnered with Sir John Whitmore. They finished 10th overall and 2nd in class. Jim had been really unknown when he started racing with the Reivers but by the end of the 1959 he was signed up to the Aston Martin Grand Prix team. They unfortunately failed to produce their car but he was also signed to Lotus to race in Formula Junior with the possibility of driving for the Lotus Grand Prix team as well. 1960 was a year of success; Jim won the Formula Junior Championship and raced in four Grand Prix for Lotus including finishing 3rd in the Portuguese GP.

This was despite driving a car that had been rebuilt after practice, and one which was really only held together with glue and masking tape! Lotus Grand Prix Team From 1961 onwards Jim was a fixture in the Lotus Grand Prix team and by the end of the season he was their main driver. In this year he won the non-championship Grand Prix at Pau. Soon after the start of the 1962 season Colin Chapman revolutionised his single-seater car designs with the introduction of the monocoque Lotus 25. Jim went onto to win four Grand Prix and came second in the World Championship missing out to Graham Hill in the final raced when an oil leak forced him to retire from the South African GP. 1963 was even better; Jim won seven out of ten World Championship Grand Prix, winning the championship with three races to spare. At 27 years old he was the then youngest ever World Champion. More than this he had also become a well known figure in the US. Lotus had entered the Indy 500 with Jim finishing second on his first attempt at an oval circuit. Another World Championship was to follow in 1965.

Jim even missed out on the Monaco GP this year to concentrate on Indianapolis. This was a good decision as he was to dominate the race, leading 190 of the 200 laps and finishing over two laps ahead of his nearest rival. Jim didn’t win another World Championship after 1965 but he was still the man to beat. Even with an uncompetitive car he won one Grand Prix in 1966 with the Lotus 43. The development of the Lotus 49 in 1967showed that he would be the driver to beat in 1968 if he had not been killed at Hockenheim in a Formula 2 race on the 7th April. Jim Clark’s Racing Statistics Today top drivers are judged, at least by the media, almost solely on their abilities in Formula 1 but in the 1960s a racing driver had to be an all rounder, comfortable in most forms of motor sport. At Grand Prix meetings they often drove in the support races as well. Jim competed and excelled in most forms of driving; in 1964 he was British and French Formula 2 champion and British Saloon Car champion too.

Although more recent drivers have won more races at Formula 1 level Jim was competing in an era where there were only 8-10 Championship races a season. During his career he competed in 72 Championship Grand prix, winning 25 of them. In addition between 1960 and his death he won another 24 non-championship Grand Prix, plus winning the Indianapolis 500 in 1965. This resulted in two Word Championships in 1963 and 1965 plus two seconds places in 1962 and 1964, both of which were decided in the last race of the season. It is even more impressive when you consider that this was in an era with less reliable cars than today and Colin Chapman’s Lotus cars while brilliant designs were also noted for being more likely to break. Another feature of Jim’s ability was that when he did not win he had often not finished the race. In his Grand Prix career he only had one second place. Some of Jim’s wins and minor places were occurred when he was nursing an ailing car and only his ability got it to the finish line.

In 1967 he was third in the World Championship, but he actually won more races than anyone else; four compared to the champion’s two wins. Unfortunately while the Lotus 49 was very fast it was still unreliable. Jim Clark | Bosch Hockenheim Historic Jim Clark Biography 4th March 1936 – 7th April 1968 The two-time world champion was killed in an accident on 7th April 1968 at the Hockenheimring. Jim Clark and Colin Chapman was the most fascinating and successful duo in motorsport history. With Chapman as the genius on the drawing board and Clark as the virtuoso on the steering wheel, the two complemented each other in unique ways. Anything Colin Chapman developed as an engineer was perfectly translated in speed by Jim Clark. Through the years, a close friendship was formed which only cemented their work relationship. Together, they conquered the world of motorsport. About Jim Clark James “Jim” Clark was born on 4th March 1936 in Kilmany, Five in Scotland. At the age of 18 and against his parents‘ wishes, he came in contact with motorsport.

Regional rallyes, agility competitions and sprints were on his agenda before he partook in his first circuit race on a DKW 3/6 which belonged to his friend Ian Scott Watson. In 1958 the Broder Reivers team provided Jim Clark with his first real racing car, a Jaguar D Type. National races in Mallory Park and Silverstone as well as his first international race in Spa (Belgium) followed. At a Lotus test day in Brands Hatch November of 1959, Jim Clark and Colin Chapman met for the very first time. Clark was able to test a Lotus Formula 1I car. So Jim Clark was not thrust in the spotlight overnight. Before he was driving his Formula 1 Lotus in 1960, he had participated in 54 events in 123 competitions. In 1960 the success story Clark/Chapman began. Clark‘s drive for the Lotus team in a Lotus 18 Formula Junior was so successful that Colin Chapman made it possible for him to start in the Formula 1 in the very same year.

The first time in front of a German audience On 4 June 1960 at the World Cup in Zandvoort (The Netherlands) Jim Clark‘s Formula 1 career started with a breakdown. About a month later, he started in Germany for the very first time in front of an audience of 200,000. At the Solitude race in Suttgart he had already won the Formula Junior race and was now staring in the Formula 1l race next to popular drivers such as World Champion Jack Brabham, Phil Hill, Jo Bonnier and Lord Berghe von Trips. But none of these established drivers was first after the first few rounds. It was then-unknown Jim Clark who drove one record-breaking round after another. Even though Jim Clark had to drop out because of a techincal malfunction, Stuttgart witnessed the beginning of a new era. From now on, Clark was part of the regulars in Formula 1. In Monza, Jim Clark had to experience how close success and tragedy can be in motorsport first-hand. He collided with Lord Berghe von Trips in the first phase of the race.

Von Trips, who was the first German on his way to be World Champion, was killed in the accident. On the prowl for the World Championship During 1962, Jim Clark became a serious contender for the world championship. With the Lotus 25, Chapman used a monocoque chassis for the first time which in combination with Clark on the steering wheel was without competition. In Spa, Belgium, Clark won his first ever Formula 1 Grand Prix, two more wins followed. Despite that he lost the title in 1962 in the last race to BRM‘s Graham Hill. In 1963 Chapman and Clark were able to reap the fruit of their labour. Jim Clark won seven out of ten races in his Lotus 25 and became world champion. In 1964, the team‘s focus dwindled because Lotus relied too heavily on Jim Clark‘s outstanding skills. The car‘s reliability suffered because of this and Clark lost the title in the last race to Ferrari‘s John Surtees. In 1965 however, Team Lotus managed to surpass the successful 1963 season.

Dropping out of the Grand Prix in Monaco paid off with a win in the Indianapolis 500-Mile Race. For the first time since 1916 a European turned into the “Victory Lane” again. In the third to last race on 1 August at the Norisring, the “Flying Scot” secured his second championship title in his Lotus 33. Wins in the Formula 1I championship of England and France as well as his legendary success in the Lotus Cortina rounded off the season. Missed title 1966 was an interim year. Jim Clark was not really competitive in a Lotus 43 with a BRM H16 cylinder motor. However he still managed to win the USA Grand Prix in Watkins Glen. In 1967 global corporation Ford entered the Formula 1 with Lotus. Jim Clark presented the combination of Lotus 49 and Ford Cosworth V8 with a triumphant win in Zandvoort. Jim Clark and his new teammate Graham Hill dominated the rest of the season. Clark went on to win three more races, but lost the championship title to Dennis Hulme and his reliable Brabham.

Most successful driver of all times With his 25th Grand Prix win in South Africa, Clark started the new season perfectly on 1 January 1968. With one more win than Fangion, he became the most successful driver of all times. The win also meant the end of an era because it was the last GP win of a Lotus with the traditional green and yellow colors. People started to say that Clark‘s superiority was so overwhelming that even the most interesting races were turning into a monotone play. I think that continuing success has nothing to do with monotony but rather is the outcome of a magnificent and outstanding effort. In February, Clark won the Tasman Series in Australia and New Zealand and the Lotus team presented themselves as the Gold Leaf Team Lotus in the colors red, white and gold for the first time. At the end of March there was an international Formula 1I race in Spain, followed by the first ever run for the European trophy for Formula 1I drivers at Hockenheimring. Despite problems with his Lotus 48 during training, Jim Clark followed TV broadcaster ZDF‘s invitation to their popular show “Das Aktuelle Sportstudio”. His TV appearance next to Kurt Ahrens remains unforgotten.

On the following morning, 7 April 1968, the first run for the European trophy at Hockenheimring started. The rest is history. written by: Juerg Mallepell "Dear Jimmy, Today would have been your 80th birthday and I fondly remember you as a hard fighter and one of my toughest competitors in all kinds of racing. I wish we had been blessed with more time to race against each other but I will never forget you. I send my best wishes to the Bosch Hockenheim Historic – The Jim Clark Revival, for a successful event being held in memory of you and the motorsport of our era." - Sir Stirling Moss "Congratulations to all involved in putting together The Jim Clark Revival element together and into the Bosch Hockenheim Historic event. Jim was one of my best friends; we shared an apartment in London, we travelled together and we certainly raced together. He was the best racing driver that I ever raced against and was my hero. Celebrating his Birthday and keeping his name in the limelight will be well recognised and respected by a great many people; not just at Hockenheim during the event, but by what you are doing all around the world.

I wish everyone an enjoyable weekend and I am sure there will be huge respect paid to the memory of Jim." - Sir Jackie Stewart Jim Clark: Biography on Undiscovered Scotland The Jim Clark Room, Duns Jim Clark, OBE, lived from 4 March 1936 to 7 April 1968. He was a highly successful Formula One racing driver who won two World Championships, in 1963 and 1965. The wider picture in Scotland at the time is set out in our Historical Timeline. Jim Clark was born into a farming family at Kilmany House Farm in Fife. He was the youngest child of five, and the only boy. When he was six years old, the family moved to Edington Mains Farm, near Duns in the Scottish Borders. He attended schools in Chirnside and at Clifton Hall near Edinburgh before attending Loretto School in Musselburgh. As soon as he was able to drive, Jim Clark began to enter rally and hill climb events, usually in his own Sunbeam-Talbot.

In 1958 he joined the Border Reivers racing team, racing Jaguar D-types and Porsches in events throughout the UK and winning 18 races. On Boxing Day in 1958 he came second to Colin Chapman, who ran Lotus, in a race. Chapman was sufficiently impressed by Clark to offer him a place driving his new "Formula Junior" cars. By the start of the 1960 season, Clark was driving for the Lotus Formula One team. He achieved 8 Championship points in his first season, 11 in his second and 30 points in 1962, the year in which he also won his first three Grand Prix races, in Belgium, Britain and the USA. In 1963 Clark was utterly dominant, winning seven out of ten races and his first World Championship. This also ensured that Lotus won its first Constructors' World Championship. In 1964 Clark came a close second in the World Championship to John Surtees, though he did win the British Touring Car Championship that year. The 1965 Formula One season was again dominated by Clark, and he won six of the ten races and the Championship.

This is all the more impressive because he was unable to compete in one of them, as the Monaco Grand Prix clashed with the Indianapolis 500, which he won for the first time that year. Changes in Formula One regulations made Lotus less competitive from 1966, though Clark and Lotus continued to dominate the Australasia based Tasman series of races. He won just one Formula One race in 1966, four in 1967, and one in 1968. Jim Clark was killed on 7 April 1968 while driving in a Formula Two race for Lotus at the Hockenheimring in Germany when his car left the track and hit a tree. During his career he had started in 72 Grand Prix, achieving 33 pole positions and 25 wins. He is buried in the village of Chirnside and is remembered in the Jim Clark room in Duns, by a statue in Kilmany in Fife, and by a memorial stone at the Hockenheimring.

Statue of Jim Clark in Kilmany Jim Clark's spirit lives at Ganassi Racing | Autoweek Jim Clark, in a picture taken in 1962, was one of the greatest race car drivers of all time. His memory lives on at Ganassi Racing. Photo by LAT PHOTOGRAPHIC Jim Clark's spirit lives at Ganassi Racing May 16, 2012 Pinterest Email It's been no secret that three-time Indianapolis 500 winner Dario Franchitti is a fan of his late countryman, Jim Clark. What might be a surprise is that Mike Hull, managing director of the Target Chip Ganassi Racing team in the Izod IndyCar Series, actually once spoke with Clark. Clark was the winningest Formula One driver of his time. He helped put the fork in the front-engine Offenhauser era and start the rear-engine Ford V8 dynasty at Indianapolis. One of the reasons that Hull, now 63, pursued a career in racing is a 30-minute conversation with the great Scottish driver at Riverside in 1967.

That was Clark's last appearance in the United States, as he died in practice for a Formula Two race at Germany's Hockenheimring in April 1968. Hull at the time was a little amazed that the United States Auto Club (USAC), then the mostly oval-race sanctioning body, chose to end the season and crown the champion at the West Coast road course. He went out to see his two heroes, Dan Gurney and Clark. “I just loved their driving style and tried to find out everything about Dan and Jim Clark. I got to meet both of them,” Hull says. There were in those days virtually no live televised races; the only information about racers came on the radio and in newspapers and magazines. You actually had to go to the racetrack if you really wanted to learn something about the sport. Another historical oddity that Hull points out was that the Rex Mays Classic was one of the few races in which Clark didn't race in a mostly green Lotus. It was a yellow Vollstedt instead. The event took place in the autumn after the Formula One season was over, so Clark took the opportunity to come back to the States. “It was such a unique time,” Hull recalls.

“I feel very fortunate I got to speak with Clark.” Car owner Rolla Vollstedt and Clark were going over a gear chart (it's all computerized today, Hull notes), and Hull, the fan, took photos while patiently waiting for a chance to speak with his racing hero. “I was introduced to Clark and spent 30 minutes talking to him. He was everything I wanted him to be,” Hull says. That was just the beginning of Hull's long career in motorpsorts. On race day, his two favorites were in a class of their own. “They were never sideways. They put the power down so well they just slowly just pulled away, pulled away,” he adds. Flash forward to today. Hull sent Franchitti a copy of one of the pictures he took of Clark but gave no explanation of who took the photo or the circumstances surrounding it. According to Hull, Franchitti asked, “Where was that photo taken and how did you get it? That's when he raced a non-Lotus car.” Rolla Vollstedt, left, discusses gears with Jim Clark at Riverside in 1967.

Photo by Mike Hull Recalling last year's buildup to the 100th anniversary of the first Indianapolis 500, Hull reveals, “[Franchitti] said to me, ‘I'm gonna drive the Clark car at the Speedway coming back from [our race in] Japan. Do you want to come out?' I said I'd beat him out there. “I love Indianapolis. I love the Speedway and everything about it. It was one of the days that was dead silent; a most unique day. Dario came out. He had a replica suit on. Nobody said a word; it was like a church. You could hear a pin drop. He nodded back, hit the switch and drove off.” Hull still smiles recalling that day. “It was the coolest thing to see. It was a great, great, sound, and I enjoyed every minute of it.” The thrill was perhaps even bigger for Franchitti. “It was very special day for me because I got to drive the Lotus 38, to drive the '65 winner,” he says now. “I never thought I'd get a chance to sit in the car, nonetheless drive it. It was a very emotional day I must admit.

As for Hull, that long-ago not-so chance meeting with his hero is part of the reason that he continues to work for one of IndyCar's strongest teams. “I enjoy what I do today as when I was younger,” he says. “I still go racing. That's what happens with people like myself who've had the opportunity to go racing. We still all possess the passion needed or required. You can't manufacture it. You just stay at it.” Just as he, Franchitti and all of Ganassi's organization will do this month at Indianapolis. Somewhere, perhaps, Jim Clark is rooting for them. By Lewis Franck h2g2 - Jim Clark OBE - racing driver Jim Clark OBE - racing driver Created 2 Conversations One of the all time great Formula One racing drivers, Jim Clark won 25 of his 72 F1 races and won the world championship on two occasions, as well as winning the Indianapolis 500. Jim Clark was born on 14th April 1936 on the family farm in Kilmany, Fife, Scotland. At the age of six he and his family moved to Edington Mains near Duns, in the Scottish borders.

A childhood fascination with fast cars led him to join the Berwick and District Motor Club as a teenager. In 1956 Clark competed in his first motor race at Crimond Airfield, near Aberdeen. Despite finishing last, he persevered, and achieved his first major success the following year when he won the Border Motor Racing Club Trophy in a Porsche 1600 Super. Clark continued to improve throughout the closing years of the 1950s, and caught the attention of the Aston Martin Formula One team, who signed him up early in 1960, although he never drove for the team - they withdrew from the competition before the season began, and Clark moved to the Lotus F1 team, having already driven for them in Formula Junior and Formula Two. His first Formula One race was the 1960 Dutch Grand Prix, alongside such legendary drivers as Graham Hill and Stirling Moss, but Clark failed to finish the race due to a gearbox problem. The second Grand Prix, in Belgium, was more successful as Clark finished fifth and scored his first points, although the race was marred by the fatal crash of his Lotus team-mate Alan Stacey.

By the end of his first season, Clark had achieved his first podium finish (third place at the Portuguese Grand Prix) and scored 8 championship points, finishing in eighth place in the world championship. The 1961 season was not much more successful. Clark secured another two third place finishes and came joint seventh in the championship, but his season was tarnished by an accident involving himself and German driver Wolfgang von Trips - the two drivers collided during the Italian Grand Prix and von Trips' car careered off the circuit, killing the driver and fourteen spectators. An improved car combined with Clark's increasing experience to produce more success in the 1962 season. He won his first championship Grand Prix in Belgium, as well as the British Grand Prix, to finish second in the world championship behind Graham Hill. The promise shown in the 1962 season came to fruition the following year, when Clark won the drivers' championship, taking first place in seven of the season's ten races. 1963 also saw Clark compete in the Indianapolis 500 for the first time, controversially finishing second behind Parnelli Jones, who many thought should have been disqualified for dropping oil onto the track.

After a disappointing 1964, Clark fought back to win both the F1 championship and the Indianapolis 500 in 1965. An under powered car put paid to his chances in 1966; 1967 was somewhat better but Clark could only finish third in the championship, despite four race wins. 1968 started promisingly, with Clark winning the South African Grand Prix in January. However the year's early promise came to an abrupt end during an unimportant Formula Two race at Hockenheim, Germany on April 7th. Clark, who had never had a major accident in his career, lost control of his Lotus on a damp track and crashed into trees at over 140 mph. He was killed instantly. The memory of Jim Clark is kept alive in his home town of Duns by an annual memorial rally and a museum, the Jim Clark Room, which houses a large number of Clark's trophies, as well as an impressive display of photographs and memorabilia from Clark's career. The museum is generally open from March to October each year, and can be found at 44 Newtown Street, Duns, Berwickshire. Was Jim Clark the greatest racing driver ever?

I believe so Was Jim Clark the Greatest Racing Driver? You are here: Home / Art / Was Jim Clark the Greatest Racing Driver? During a recent conversation with a friend of mine about great historic racing cars and the drivers that made them great we came upon the legend that is Jim Clark . It was always going to be difficult coming up with a top ten, there are so many great names and marques to choose from. It should have been no surprise that Jim Clark featured so highly on both our lists, especially considering how many career highlights he had before his untimely death. We argued about his relationship with Lotus. Clark was lucky to escape death after colliding with von Trips Ferrari at Monza in 1961 yet Clark went on to claim the first of Lotus’ World Championships in 1963 at the wheel of a Lotus 25, winning seven out of ten races that season. That was great, but what he did at Indy was even more remarkable. In 1965, after some unsuccessful attempts and unlucky mechanical failures he won the Indy 500 and The F1 World Title at the hands of a Lotus 38. He is the only driver to ever win the double in the same year.

He also won three titles in the Tasman F1 series, run for older cars whilst challenging for F1 honours – a record for the series. Can you imagine today’s F1 faggotts competing in two series in the same year and winning both of them? As if that wasn’t enough Clark was perhaps even more fabled for his exploits in a works Lotus-Cortina in which he competed in and won the 1964 British Touring Car Championship (pictured above). He would have won the RAC Rally of Great Britain had it not been for a crash near to the end. Clark was able to adapt to any car he drove with ease and mastery. He had often commented on why he found it difficult to understand why other drivers weren’t as quick as him. Clark’s stats and results speak for themselves but perhaps his greatest achievement was to be a man that was universally held in high regard by all his peers and his devoted fans. He was a gentleman, a racing driver of unparalleled talent and gave us some of the most memorable motor racing moments of all time. Who can fails to marvel at the footage of him four wheel drifting his Cortina with one arm hanging out of the window? Genius.

[ssba] Remember Jim Clark Remember Jim Clark by Roger Horton, England Sunday April 7th, 1968. It was an April day like any other April day. Dull, overcast with intermittent showers. In England the motor racing fraternity's attention was focused on the BOAC 500 at Brands Hatch. A six hour race for Sports cars. The grid was filled with Porches, GT40's, Lola-Chevrolets and Ferraris. Much interest surrounded the debut of Ford's successor to their GT40, the new Alan Mann Ford V-8 F3L. At Hockenheim in Germany there was a minor Formula 2 race taking place, the Deutschland Trophy. It was the second round of the European Formula 2 Championship. In those days Formula One drivers competed in races almost every weekend. At Brands Hatch Denny Hulme and Bruce McLaren shared the new Ford; in Germany the works Lotus cars were driven by Graham Hill and Jim Clark. The Deutschland Trophy was to be run in two heats. The track was still wet from heavy overnight rain, although it was only drizzling by the start of the first heat.

Jim Clark had not gone well in practice and he lined up on the grid in 7th position. As he passed the pits to start his 5th lap, he was in 8th place and clearly in some trouble with his car. Jim Clark never completed that lap. As he drove round a slight right hand curve at over 140 MPH the car was seen to twitch, then to leave the circuit diagonally and to slam sideways into some trees. Jim Clark was killed instantly. A lot died with Jim Clark's death. It signalled the beginning of the end of the "amateur" era in F1. Although many more drivers would die for want of even elementary safety measures, both in terms of car construction and track design, so shaken were the drivers that under the leadership of Clark's great friend and rival Jackie Stewart, the push for change started. Run off areas, guard rails and gravel traps would greet the over-the-limit driver. Not trees, ditches and earth banks. Jim Clark, the son of a Scottish farmer, made his competition debut in June 1956 driving his own Sunbeam Mk 3 in a local sprint event. He won.

Over the next 12 years he would dominate world motor racing like no one before or since. Two World Championships, twenty five Grand Prix victories, thirty three pole positions, winner of the 1965 Indianapolis 500, three times Tasman Champion. When you dig deeper and realize that two more World Championships slipped away in '62 and '64 through engine related failures at the final race, a clearer picture of his dominance emerges. Statistics alone, though, can never tell the full story, just as drivers from different eras cannot and should not be compared. A driver can only be judged against the other drivers he drove against. Clearly Clark totally dominated his era and set the standards by which others were judged. Sure he had challengers, Graham Hill and Dan Gurney throughout most of his F1 career, Jochen Rindt in F2 was a fierce competitor. Jackie Stewart was emerging as his main rival in F1. Interestingly it was Jim Clark's father, who at his son's funeral took Dan Gurney aside and told him that he (Gurney) was the only driver Jim had ever feared on the race tracks of the world.

Indeed it was Dan Gurney that pushed Colin Chapman, the legendary founder of the Lotus company - for whom Clark drove almost exclusively throughout his career, to build a series of special cars to compete in the Indianapolis 500. In many ways it was Jim Clark's performances in oval track racing, a discipline in which he had no previous experience, that underlined just what a natural talent he possessed. In the early '60s Indy was dominated by front engined roadsters, powered by the Offenhauser engine that had been around since before the second world war! Clearly the Americans were unimpressed by the arrival of these Europeans with their rear engined cars so obviously intent upon winning their race and making off with the considerable prize fund on offer. Lotus could win more money in this one race than the entire Grand Prix season. For Colin Chapman it was both good business and a technical challenge. For Jim Clark American racing was a dilemma. He hated the "over the top" publicity and all the hype that surrounded the Indy 500, but as always it came down to the fact that it was a race and he was a racing driver. It challenged him and he was hooked. His record at Indy was impressive.

He won in '65, came second in '63 and '66. In '64 tire failure caused his retirement whilst leading. If his record was outstanding, his driving was sublime - he just made it look so easy. He could even spin and keep the car off the wall, not an easy thing to do now or then. Many watching racing in the sixties have a special Jim Clark memory. Brands Hatch in early 1965, the Race of Champions, one of the many pre-season F1 races run at that time. Clark was leading in his Lotus but being pressed hard by Dan Gurney in his Brabham. As they entered bottom bend Clark drifted too far out on the exit and his two outside wheels were on the grass. Unable to either regain the track or slow down, the car clipped a marshal's post and was destroyed. For an instant the sight of the broken Lotus was frozen in time until there was movement in the cockpit and Clark jumped out unhurt. The crowd, all too used to motor racing tragedies in the sixties, instinctively applauded to release the tension. The race soon ended and the Lotus team sent a truck to collect the remains of Clark's Lotus 33.

The mechanics loaded the car and the person assisting them was none other than Jim Clark, O.B.E. World Champion racing driver, so soon to sweep all before him in the year ahead. No wonder a generation of mechanics at Lotus liked and admired him so much. Just how much, was demonstrated to me nearly thirty years after Clark's death. It is another race paddock in another continent. During a lull in activity I struck up a conversation with a team member whose accent betrayed his English origins. He worked for Lotus in the sixties and so inevitably the conversation turned to Jim Clark. For a few moments the memories flowed before suddenly his eyes misted over and he turned away. It is a familiar reaction. For some the memories are just too painful. Perhaps also it is the realization that more than just a driver died at Hockenheim all those years ago. Racing of that era extracted a terrible price in terms of motor racing deaths, but racing was still a sport, not a commercial endeavor. Jim Clark's 25th and last Grand Prix victory was the last to be won by Lotus in their national colors. The commercial era had arrived. Jim Clark was killed whilst at the peak of his powers.

The victim of a mechanical failure that was beyond even his remarkable skill to overcome. In the end it wasn't his skill that deserted him, it was his luck. Roger Horton Clark and Gurney: The Best of Both Worlds The Best of Both Worlds by Thomas O'Keefe, U.S.A. PART I Have two drivers ever exemplified and represented their countries and their sport better than Scotland's Jim Clark and America's Dan Gurney? What Clark and Gurney did in their years together and the manner in which they did it had a certain special nobility about it that is the stuff of legend. One of these men, Jim Clark, was tragically taken from us prematurely in a fatal accident; the other, Dan Gurney, is very much with us and is still actively involved in motorsports, most recently helping his son, Alex Gurney, come up the ladder from the Toyota Atlantic series to Formula One. If Clark had lived, his thick jet black hair would now have thinned out and have touches of gray, and he would in all likelihood be a gentleman sheep farmer on the cusp of his 65th birthday, on March 4th 2001.

And about a month later, on April 13th 2001, his friend Dan Gurney would be turning 70 - which makes Gurney, in turn, just a few months younger than Bernie Ecclestone, who turned 70 back in October 2000. The purpose of this series on Clark and Gurney is to celebrate them both and the Golden Age of Grand Prix they did so much to make memorable, when teams somehow operated their worldwide escapades on shoestring budgets; when the Grand Prix cars had manual gearshifts, skinny tires, no advertising, no aerodynamic devices to speak of, but lots of experimentation to achieve mechanical grip; and when the drivers themselves were an interesting and varied breed of cat, no more so than our principal characters, Clark and Gurney. So settle back and celebrate the Sixties in Formula One, through the prism of two drivers who were at the center of that tempestuous and dangerous decade. Daniel Sexton Gurney: A California Dreamer Goes to Europe Dan Gurney had a longer career in Formula One than the Flying Scot, but it is less well known.

The tall, blond and handsome Californian (though a native New Yorker, born on Long Island) began his Formula One career in the best way imaginable for a rookie Grand Prix driver: at Rheims behind the wheel of a front-engined Ferrari Dino 246 for the 1959 French Grand Prix, having impressed Ferrari's American dealer, Luigi Chinetti, with his skills racing sportscars. Although always youthful looking, Gurney was already 28 years old (having served in the Korean War) and had fewer than 20 races under his belt. During the four Grands Prix he ran that year, he showed well, even at his first race at Rheims, where he was up to sixth place before going out after 20 laps. In the other races that year he was a standout for a rookie. At the historic and dangerous AVUS circuit near Berlin for the Grand Prix of Germany (where the race was run in heats), he finished second in only his second Grand Prix.

He had a fierce struggle at the AVUS race with fellow American Masten Gregory, whose nimble rear-engined Cooper T51 stayed ahead of the Ferrari until Gurney subtly signaled his intentions by punting the Cooper offline in the South Curve, virtually climbing up the back of the Cooper's engine cover in the process. Gurney also got his first taste of death in Formula One that day at the AVUS, as his former Ferrari teammate, Jean Behra, was killed in a support race in the rain when his Porsche sports car vaulted over the railing of the high-speed North Curve AVUS banking. In his next race, the Grand Prix of Portugal, Gurney out-qualified fellow Ferrari teammate Phil Hill and finished third; in the Italian Grand Prix, Gurney finished fourth, in what turned out to be his last race for Ferrari. In 1960, Gurney made his first improvident judgment call, jumping ship from Ferrari to go to BRM, where the money was better and the engine was in the rear. In a year with disastrous results, Gurney finished a race only once - 10th place at the British Grand Prix.

In the Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort, Gurney's brakes failed coming down the front straight, the BRM ran straight off the course at the Tarzan Hairpin corner and turned over, killing one spectator who was in a prohibited area, and injuring others along the way. Miraculously, Gurney was spared. It was also Jim Clark's first Grand Prix, and he was driving the Lotus 18 - the first rear-engined car for Lotus. Clark also retired from the race after battling with Graham Hill, Dan Gurney's teammate at BRM, who ultimately finished third in the race. This race was the first time all three of these drivers, who were to spend the 1960s together, were in the same Grand Prix. Before detailing how Clark and Gurney meshed in their careers, it is important to understand the breadth of a man like Dan Gurney, which was doubtless part of his appeal to Clark and the other members of the Grand Prix fraternity, including Gurney's many fans.

On the face of it, Gurney's overall Formula One statistics are not all that earth-shattering: he participated in 87 Grands Prix from 1959 to 1970, won 4 of them, was on pole 3 times and had 6 fastest laps - about the same record as, say, David Coulthard before the 2000 season commenced. But what he accomplished in that time span was remarkable and validates the axiom that statistics can sometimes lie. To begin with, Gurney was versatile, both as a driver and a person, and approached his racing life with a zest that never left him, no matter how many disappointments he suffered, and there were plenty of them. It is often said that Stirling Moss is the best British driver never to become a World Champion; change the nationality to American and you have Gurney. Both never finished higher than second (Moss) and third (Gurney) in the World Drivers' Championship, but both deserved better and were often let down by the frailties of the cars available to them.

Whether Gurney was driving his own Eagle-Westlake Grand Prix car at Spa and winning, driving the ground-breaking Lotus-Ford at Indianapolis, racing Carrol Shelby's Cobra sports cars at Goodwood, a Ferrari "Testarossa" at Sebring or the Ford Mark IV "GT 40s" at Le Mans, manhandling a Holman & Moody-prepared Ford stock car around Riverside Raceway in California for the NASCAR Riverside 500, or wrestling the Ford Galaxie "saloon car" around Oulton Park - he was always fast. What he lacked was racing luck, a mysterious quality that people like Fangio, Prost and Senna seemed to have, moving up to the right cars at the right time, but which the Racing Gods denied to Gurney. Although if he finished a Grand Prix, Gurney would usually finish in the points, appearing on 21 podiums, his cars let him down in over 50% of his 86 Grands Prix. Nonetheless, his career had many distinctions.

Gurney did manage to take Brabham, Porsche and his own Eagle to their respective first wins, and his Eagle remains the only American Formula One car to have won a Grand Prix. He won Le Mans with Indy 500 Champion A.J. Foyt (like Alexander Wurz, Gurney was so tall that the closed-cockpit GT40 had a special blister panel cut into the roof to accommodate his head) and invented celebrating such victories with champagne at the Le Mans triumph, a now time-honored tradition that is customary in every Grand Prix. Gurney believes that he is also the one who gave Colin Chapman the idea for the reclining position in modern Grand Prix cars, when one day at the Lotus factory, Dan was attempting to fit his lanky frame into the confined quarters of a Lotus sports car he had purchased - a Lotus 19 - and ended up adopting a reclined position to fit himself in the car! Chapman took notes. Gurney is also credited with coming up with the CART acronym for Championship Auto Racing Teams, of which he was one of the founders.

He also was the first to use the full face Bell Helmet in Grand Prix racing at the 1968 German Grand Prix. And the "Gurney Flap" wickerbill found on the rear wings of open wheel cars of all kinds is named after its developer, Dan Gurney. And like very few Grand Prix drivers, Gurney had an entrepreneurial side that manifested itself throughout his career. Incredibly, he was barely 30 years old and had been in only a handful of Grands Prix and no Indy 500s when he had the insight and the political savoir faire to put executives at Ford Motor Company and Colin Chapman of Lotus together at Indy in 1962, an alliance that led to the successful rear-engined revolution at Indy. He believed so strongly that Ford and Lotus would be a match made in heaven that he did the unthinkable for a driver, then or now: he paid Colin Chapman's airfare for him to come to the Indy 500 in 1962 to see what it was all about.

After the Lotus-Ford era ended, Gurney began his own company, All American Racers, with another of his ex-bosses, Carrol Shelby, and launched the long line of Indianapolis-style and Grand Prix Eagles that were among the prettiest and fastest cars of their era in both of those open-wheel worlds. His Indy Eagles won three Indy 500s (driven by others). Once Gurney retired from Grand Prix racing, he continued to produce beautifully prepared Toyota-powered GTO/GTP cars as well as a Toyota-powered Eagle Indy car. In all of these cars, there was a continuity back to the gorgeous 1967 Eagle-Westlake with its subtly peaked nose. All the spectacular-looking Jordan Grand Prix yellow paint schemes of the late 1990s with animal/bird/insect motifs on their bodywork can track their pictorial origins back to Gurney's Eagles. Jim Clark: The Quiet Scottish Sheep Farmer Meets the Gregarious American How and when did Jim Clark fit into Gurney's life and career? As indicated, it all started with Lotus, Ford and Indianapolis in the early 1960s.

Clark and Gurney were on different teams on the Grand Prix circuit at that time - Gurney with Ferrari, BRM, Porsche and Brabham at various times, and Clark for his entire career with Lotus - but, extraordinarily, they collaborated and became teammates in other forms of racing, mostly through Ford connections. What did the quiet and reserved sheep farmer from Chirnside, Scotland have in common with the tall and gregarious Californian with the easy smile? Not much on the surface, you would think, but somehow while Gurney cut his racing teeth hot rodding around Southern California's orange groves or on the Bonneville salt flats, and Clark honed his skills on Sunbeam and DKW Sonderklasse saloon cars on wind-blown circuits in the wilds of Scotland, they somehow ended up in the same place: having an elegant touch at the wheel, passionately committed to the life of a racing driver and totally uninterested in the politics of Grand Prix racing. Dan Gurney recalls their unusual friendship, as quoted in Andrew Ferguson's book, "Team Lotus - The Indianapolis Years": "You should also appreciate that Jimmy and I were on remarkably good terms for teammates ...

By the nature of racing, teammates generally hate each other. They have to. It's an almost inevitable part of the job because each is trying to out perform the other - to prove himself top dog. It is part of the inevitable psychology of the situation. "But in Formula One at that time, Jimmy and I were racing against each other almost every other weekend - he for Lotus, me for Brabham. We had a clear idea of each other's capability. We shared an awful lot of mutual respect; I thought an awful lot of him as a driver and as a man, and I think he reckoned I was OK too. So when we came together on the Indy programme we worked together just fine. "We both just enjoyed racing cars and everything about them. We both enjoyed trying out different kinds of cars - Jimmy tried driving an American Stock car out of curiosity, and of course I drove them too. We both drive Lotus-Cortinas, which were a lot of fun, and we ran Indy cars on the road circuit at Riverside too ... We both got a real kick out of bringing together our two worlds of racing at Indy - the European-style road-racing design and USAC oval-track racing.

"Going into Indy racing with something so entirely new was one hell of a challenge - there was no place for in-fighting, neither of us was political, and above all it was fun tweaking the Establishment's tail." Although Jim Clark's Grand Prix career (1960-68) was shorter than Gurney's (1959-70), Clark's statistics are much more impressive, since he was both a fabulous driver and happened to spend his entire career in the best car of the era - Colin Chapman's Lotus. Clark participated in 73 races, won 25 of them, had 33 poles, 28 fastest laps and was on the podium 32 times. Incredibly, he was on the front row of the grid 48 times and led 43 Grands Prix. He was World Drivers' Champion in 1963 and 1965, and almost won in 1962 and 1964.

For all of his seemingly effortless success at the front of the field in his Lotus as he is most often remembered, Clark had a number of memorable races that he did not win; some of these spectacular performances were against other drivers, and in some of them the main competition was himself or the clock or his own high standards. Next Week: 1960 through 1963. Thomas O'Keefe

Question: Which racing team did Jim Clark race for during all of his career
Answer: Lotus